Ensign: Riddle Me This

All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. Isaiah 18:3
























AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS 14 August 2015




What is the one question you can't answer?


For the last few months when I've taken my kids up to bed (we live in a two-story house) I've been asking my kids Sarah and Jeffrey riddles and most of the time one of them DOES get the right answer, and I thought it was hard! The first one I remember asking was the Riddle of the Sphinx ("What walks on four feet in the morning, two feet in the afternoon, and three feet in the evening?" The answer being MAN; it's an allegory for a human life -- when you're born "in the morning" you crawl on all fours, as a child and adult "in the afternoon" most of us walk on two legs, and when you're old "in the evening" you use a cane, your third leg.)




Jeffrey got that (the Riddle of the Sphinx) pretty quickly, and NO I did not coach him. In fact my kids will say "stop Dad, I'm thinking" if I try to give them a hint and they don't ask for it. But back to "the question you can't answer": I asked Sarah and Jeffrey this riddle Wednesday night -- I'm not quite as clever as you may believe, I have to look many of them up -- and they weren't looking to answer a question with a question so much as give me an answer. But with this one you HAVE to answer with a question, it's kind of in the wording. So what IS the one question you can't answer?


What's it like to be dead?


There's several instances in the Bible of people rising or being raised from the dead (Jesus in the Gospels, Lazarus in the eleventh chapter of John, and the lesser-known man whom Elisha's bones fell on, see 2 Kings 13 -- that's a really cool story!) but none of the people who rose or "came back" to life, I'll explain the quotes in a minute, were asked that question. At least it's not recorded that they were, and I can't speak for any people in our own day who claim to have seen the light at the end of the tunnel or know such, who were dead on the operating table yet "come back", wait for it, to life. But we see it more often, and experience it more often, than we realize.


Remember that next the next time you wake up! It's no riddle if everyone knows it, yet it is a riddle to us if we don't know it. John 6:40 -- [Jesus is speaking] "And this is the will of him [God His Father] that sent me, that every one that seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day." Italics mine. No astral projections, no our spirits hover over our nonresponsive bodies -- we're just there. We're conceived, we're born, we grow, we live, and we die. (I was going for a Pentateuchal structure with that.) And if we believe Jesus is Who He's said He is, we will ALWAYS live, or have everlasting life. Even if and when we die, we won't know it.


For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.


Within Jesus' response to Nicodemus' question, "How can these things be? [How can anyone be born again?]" from John 3:9 we find the basic statement of the Christian faith. Though I advise you to real the whole account, from verses ten through twenty-one. Without God stepping into our human experience and giving Jesus His Son to perish so we would not (talk about foreshadowing), we'd be the ones perishing, the ones with -- come on, we know our opposites, life is the opposite of death -- everlasting death to look forward to. Everlasting. Either. Way. Nobody can answer, or will be able to answer "What's it like to be dead?" because you don't notice it happening to you. Before then?


Now riddle me that, David
















P. S. I write this weekly devotional to keep in touch with you, and I hope it encourages you too. If I'm not or you want me to get lost, please let me know -- thank you!

























Thank You, Lord, that we can come to You in praise and prayer and that You provide for all our needs, even the ones we don't know we have! Let us pray for the peace of Jerusalem on both sides of the fence there and around the world.

























Thank You, Lord, for all of us in leadership and service here and abroad, as well as for opportunities we have and the promise of new life! I pray we all seek and have a blessed week. Amen.